


Blushingham Palace

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: AU, M/M, Music, Musician Harry, Musicians, Pianist Harry, Student Eggsy Unwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Harry had been right - that beauty mark on his throat quivered with the movement, a grace note.





	Blushingham Palace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tea_with_sgt_barnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_with_sgt_barnes/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [tea_with_sgt_barnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_with_sgt_barnes/pseuds/tea_with_sgt_barnes) in the [opisummerchallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/opisummerchallenge) collection. 



> For the prompt of Harry/Eggsy plus OPI's color Blushingham Palace (at the OPI Summer Challenge).

"You are _ridiculous_. You are demanding in ways that no human being has ever been demanding before. Everything must be _just so_ for the great Harry Hart." 

Harry let Merlin rant on, italics and all, reasoning that it was probably good that the man had an outlet for all of his frustration. He turned his attention to the mirror, idly straightening his collar and sweeping back his hair.

Merlin was crescendoing nicely. "One rehearsal for the space's acoustics. Then another after your manicure. Then another in your tuxedo. When you know all the pieces backwards and forwards and upside down! You're like a dumb dog trying to pick a patch of floor to sit on - sink, no, circle, circle, circle, pause, sink down, startle at the sight of your own damn tail, circle, circle, circle, before finally laying your furry arse down in the first spot! I watched that floofy rat of yours do it often enough to recognise the behaviour in you - he probably learnt it by watching you!"

"Mr. Pickle was a gift from you!" Harry said, struck by how intimidating Merlin could look, all long and lean and _honed_ ; it just went to show how little looks counted for, because Merlin was the soft touch to end all soft touches. The late and lamented Mr. Pickle had been introduced into his life when the reviews of Harry's first album had come out, all of them focusing more on the cover image - Harry smiling tentatively, looking half his age and leaning on a baby grand - than the music he'd poured his soul into.

"And I should have known that one curly-haired gobshite could do enough damage on his own and not paired two of you together!"

Harry took a determined breath and reached out a hand - a hand insured for a hefty sum - toward his manager and best friend. "What's wrong?"

Merlin collapsed into the cosiest overstuffed chair that Harry owned. "Lance," he said, dragging the name out in a groan that seemed to rise up from the tips of his toes. "That man is a menace."

"That we knew," Harry pointed out. "What's he done now?"

"Wore mustard-yellow windowpane check to the Round Table Quartet's photo shoot."

"Oh."

"And smirked every time he looked at Percival, who was covered in hickeys."

"Gracious," Harry murmured. That'd be a nice day's work for whoever was tasked with touching up the pictures.

"I don't know how Gwen and Kay put up with him, not to mention poor Perce."

Merlin looked so harried that Harry prudently buttoned his lip instead of hinting that Gwen and Kay happily joined in any group-bonding activities Lance and Percy initiated. It didn't seem fair to bring it up, knowing Merlin was too frazzled to even look for someone, let alone indulge in any such pleasurable endeavours.

"What about you, then, Harry?" Merlin said after a long silence, already penitently reaching out to knead Harry's hands; the man was a born caretaker, and Harry loved him more than words could say.

"I'm going to the concert hall tonight at midnight to reacquaint myself with the Bösendorfer and finalise the selections." Merlin nodded, applying himself to Harry's knuckles. Just to keep him on his toes, Harry said, "Manicure day after tomorrow, and I still haven't picked out my waistcoat."

"You are a plague on my house," Merlin muttered. "And I don't know what I'd do without you."

* * *

The Bösendorfer played like a dream - evenly weighted keys, each note chiming in the air like a bell - and Harry ran through scales and the Czerny exercises he still enjoyed because they brought him back to the first time he'd sat at his mother's cherrywood piano. His favourite warm-up came next, the spill of the notes like waterfalls, bright and clear and sparkling, and it was so satisfying to watch his hands work, the ghostly pair in the reflection of glossy black mirroring them. 

He could feel that something had changed in the one minute it took to play "Solfeggietto," and he spun sharply on the bench to see what had raised the fine hairs on the backs of his hands.

It was a man. He was dressed in a hideous boiler suit of industrial green and had a wheeled cart at his side loaded with cleaning supplies, but all Harry could see was the pink of his open mouth. A pink so shockingly fresh and appealing that Harry felt like he'd been living a life confined to the black and white of a piano's keys until that very moment. A pink that -

"Oi, you s'posed to be here, guv? Ain't it past your bedtime?" Well. A pink that could shape words such as that, in an accent so deplorable that Harry physically shrank back before recollecting himself.

Summoning as lordly a manner as he could - Merlin would say he didn't have to reach far, being a posh bastard with no small sense of superiority - he responded crisply, "I assure you I have every right to be here." He eyed the man, wondering if it was due to him that the piano was so clean; there'd been not a speck of dust when he sat down to play, despite the fact that open baby grands were practically magnets for the stuff. Yes, there was a feather duster sticking out of one corner of his cart. "I am playing here in a week's time" - the man's eyes sharpened and grew interested at that - "and wanted to learn the instrument and the space."

"Harry Hart, yeah?" the man said, and oh, the pleasure Harry felt at seeing that lovely pink shape his name. "Yeah, with the curls. That poster in the lobby don't do you justice, guv."

Harry could feel himself turning pink - how nice, they'd be a matched set - and stood, walking toward the cleaner with his hand outstretched. "That's very kind of you to say," he said, pausing to let the man offer his name.

"I'm Eggsy," Eggsy said, wiping his hand on the thigh of his wretched boiler suit before shaking Harry's. Mmm, pleasingly rough, but up close Harry could see that the man was young, very young, with green eyes, golden stubble, and the loveliest mole like an unstemmed quarter note dotting his throat. He wanted to lick it until Eggsy's swallowing turned it into a trill.

"Nice to meet you an' all," Eggsy said, dropping his hand. "Ain't gonna bother you if I work around you, is it?"

He wasn't used to having an audience for his rehearsals, but he could not fathom minding Eggsy's emerald eyes on him for as long as they cared to be. "Not in the least."

"Cheers, then," Eggsy said, and got to work. Harry felt like he was having an out-of-body experience, watching him bend over to scrub, the boiler suit shaping itself around that arse like it had been transformed to the thinnest slip of silk. Harry shut his eyes and turned, heading for the sanity of the piano.

*

Harry emerged from the pull of the music hours later, his back tight and his arse a little numb - he never had fattened up enough to have some padding for the hours he spent sitting on wooden benches - and drew the cover down over the keys. Silently, he stretched and looked around. The cleaning cart had vanished, and Eggsy was long gone; he'd been quick and quiet as he worked, and everything was gleaming in his wake.

Harry headed for the steps, stopping like a cartoon character with one foot in the air when he saw Eggsy, curled up in one of the plush auditorium seats, fast asleep. The boy had toed off his shoes - they had _wings_ on them, of all the fashion disasters - and stripped out of his boiler suit, leaving him in jeans, a long-sleeved henley the colour of slate, and socks that seemed to be all over holes. The rosy flesh of his soles peeked through, easily visible since he'd hooked his knees over the seat in front of him; again with the pink, Harry thought, thoroughly charmed.

There was an open knapsack next to his discarded trainers, and beneath a snapback - truly, who dressed the boy? - Harry could see notebooks and textbooks crammed every which way. None of it told Harry what the boy was usually up to at 3:12 a.m. 

He couldn't just leave the boy. "Eggsy," he said, one hand on the boy's shin. The face tilted up toward him was young and lovely and drawn with fatigue. The blush pink of his lips was truly remarkable. "Eggsy," he said again, shaking him gently. Green eyes snapped open, narrow like they were used to assessing threats.

Seeing only Harry above him, Eggsy did a marvellous thing. He smiled. "Hey, Harry. Time's it?" His voice had gone deep with sleep, as distinct from his regular pitch as a cambiata was from a baritone.

"Quarter past three," Harry whispered back, reluctant to break the spell of silence that had Eggsy's eyes drowsily closing again.

"Tube don't start till five," Eggsy murmured. "Plenny o' time. I liked your music."

"Thank you," Harry said politely, marvelling at the aptitude of youth to be comfortable enough to sleep even in the most ludicrous positions; had he curled up in one of these seats - assuming one would even accommodate the length of his legs - he'd have paid for it for the next fortnight. "Would you not be more comfortable in a bed?"

A frown developed between Eggsy's closed eyes. "Tube," he reminded Harry. 

"I'm taking a taxi home and would be happy to drop you at yours."

The frown lines did not vanish when Eggsy opened his eyes. "Can't go home while 'e's there."

 _Fortes fortuna adiuvat_ , Harry reminded himself. "Come home with me, then."

It took sixteen beats of Harry's heart for Eggsy to say yes.

* * *

_You are not playing Orpheus_ , Harry told himself sternly - he seemed to be conversing with himself quite a lot tonight - _so you can turn around and look if you want._

He did want, wanted to swivel his head and look at Eggsy, stretched out on the back seat of the taxi, where Harry had put him so that he wouldn't be tempted to touch that body made pliable by exhaustion. Instead, he faced forward and thought about how to get the boy up the steps to the spare room, because his sofa was the very devil and he was not about to subject Eggsy to its spine-crushing machinations. 

It turned out not to be an issue at all, the boy waking enough to put one unshod foot in front of the other, sweetly obedient when Harry drew back the covers of the guest bed. Harry could see the back of his head, just a sliver of sharply defined jaw, and a burst of pink as Eggsy lay with his face pressed into the pillow. It was a sight that made him want to fall asleep immediately so he could chase the image in his dreams. 

He drew the bedclothes up around the boy, locked up the house, and then made his way to his own chilly bed. 

*

He woke at his usual hour, the one Merlin liked to call shamefully belated, not quite groggy but not exactly sharp either. He frowned a bit as he wound his way down the stairs, trying to work out whether the music he was hearing was a remnant of some dream he'd had or if he'd left his stereo on when he'd gone to bed. That was his own rendition of Chopin's Opus 35, which he'd resolved to stop playing in public, as the vigour it demanded had always set his curls to bouncing in a way that Merlin claimed was half hypnotic and half hilarious.

He stopped short when he saw the pretty picture of his dining room. Eggsy was sitting at the head of the table, hair evidently still damp from a shower though he was wearing the same jeans and henley Harry remembered from the wee small hours of the morning, studiously writing in a notebook with three thick books open in front of him. There was a mug of tea by his elbow, and next to that was a stack of Harry's CDs. Eggsy composed his essay in fits and starts, catching himself every time his attention to his work lapsed and he started nodding along with the rhythm of the sonata. 

Harry might have forgotten how to make words.

Lucky, then, that Eggsy looked up at that moment and smiled at him. "Mornin'." The mark on his neck looked like a drop of ink in fresh cream, absolutely luxurious.

"What are you doing?" was all Harry could think to ask.

"Shoulda done me essay last night after finishin' the cleanin', but the free concert was too good to pass up," Eggsy said.

"You're in school?" Harry said stupidly.

"We can't all be ornamental, bruv," was the cheeky reply, accompanied by a wink. "Need to earn a livin' wage, me."

The right thing to do, Harry supposed, would be to take on a paternal tone, ask the boy what he was studying, and how well he was doing in his classes. But he remembered the brisk efficiency of Eggsy at work, saw the quiet loveliness of Eggsy at his studies, and had dreamt - it was coming back to him now, in time for his traitorous face to flush and heat - of Eggsy arching up to meet his touch; he couldn't say anything nearly so disinterested.

Eggsy put down his pen and cradled his mug - the one Lance had bought him, which said _They see me rollin' / They Haydn_ in needlessly elaborate calligraphic font - between his hands and took a long, thoughtful sip. The Chopin still painted the air between them. "You been doin' this a long time. This your first record? What were you, like twelve?"

"Double it and add one for good luck." He'd known that that photo shoot was going disastrously, but he and Merlin had just been getting their feet wet and hadn't known how much sway they had over anything but the music. Those wretched photographs were the only proof Harry had of Merlin's being anything other than infallible.

"Bruv, this is you at twenny-five? You was a pretty little thing." Eggsy was scanning the case of his first CD like he was a detective looking for clues.

As if Eggsy, his eyebrows up and his face alight, didn't throw him into shadow. Eggsy's eyes were bright and green, his pink mouth curled up at the corners, his dappled skin fresh and smelling of the honey-scented French-milled soap Harry had left in the guest bath.

"Far less lovely than you," Harry said, and Eggsy smiled, blushed, and dropped his eyes, retreating into his tea.

Harry almost missed it when Eggsy mumbled into the mug. "I ain't lovely."

That ought not to go unchallenged, but Harry decided on a different tack. "Perhaps we can agree on breakfast."

*

Eggsy liked his eggs scrambled with curry powder, ate two heaping helpings of beans, and saved his orange juice for last to finish with a mouthful of sweetness. Eggsy was as much a delight to behold like this - indolent and well-fed - as he'd been when he'd laughed, cleared the table of his schoolwork, and bounced up to help with the cooking.

"I have a favour to ask of you," Harry said, drying his hands on the towel and trying not to mind that Eggsy simply wiped his wet hands on his jeans.

"Course," Eggsy said. "I c'n clear out sharpish."

Harry couldn't stop himself from catching hold of Eggsy's arm. "Your departure is the last thing I want."

"Oh," the boy said. His eyes stayed locked on the floor. "What, then?"

"I've yet to finalise the programme for my upcoming concert, and I wondered if I could prevail upon you to offer your opinions."

Glass-green eyes snapped up to meet his. "I know fuck all 'bout this." 

Harry would have given much to stop sounding like a particularly stuffy old coot - like Chester King, in fact, who'd nearly fainted dead away when the concept of female cellists' preferring to wear trousers was thrust upon his delicate sensibilities. "I don't require expertise, just enthusiasm." 

Eggsy bit his pink lip to red. "I do know that it's better to watch you play live than to hear a recordin'."

His heart was gracelessly hammering an irregular beat at the thought that Eggsy might have appreciated the way he looked when he was at his best, making music that made him and the instrument and the composer all parts of the same whole.

Eggsy's eyes were wide, scanning his face, and Harry's lack of response seemed to push him into saying more. "The one you played last night, the one that went -" he hummed.

Close as they were standing, Harry couldn't quite make it out. Without thinking, he laid a hand on Eggsy's throat to feel the vibrations, but Eggsy broke off, swallowing. 

Harry had been right - that beauty mark on his throat quivered with the movement, a grace note.

Harry had been wrong - Eggsy didn't arch up to meet his touch; Eggsy surged up to kiss him first, and Harry wound his arms around him and kissed back, relishing the soft wetness of a mouth so pinkly ripe.

* * *

Harry took the stage in a new pink waistcoat. Merlin still hadn't figured out what had inspired him to choose that colour, even though Eggsy was sitting right next to him in the first row. 

Harry smiled at them both, bright spots in the undifferentiated sea of the audience, and began to play.


End file.
